Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Skittles can mean the candy but in the nail world Skittles mean painting your nails a different color. Sometimes I can't decide on a color and paint each hand a different color. I do this often. People must think I'm weird.

**On a technical note, I broke 2 nails on my left hand. I'm trying not to expose it to too much remover. That's why posts are with my right hand and my nasty writing callus. -sorry- I debating a file down.

Here are the other bloggers participating in this challenge, please check out their interpretation for this challenge:

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Over this past weekend, I attended Fananime 2012. I threw together my standard cutesy Japanese street punk look to attend the con. It's not much of a deviation from what I usually wear on the weekends when I'm not at the office.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Berrypolished is hosting a nail art contest on her Facebook page. The theme is simply black and white. It's open until June 1st, please try to enter. Please check her page for details. It's open internationally.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

I don't normally post naked nails photos. I have been getting comments if my nails are fake or not. Here's some photos of my nails without polish. These were taken late last week.

Those clear spots are where the nail bed has grown further under my nail. Also, my nails are still "wet" from soaking off glitter using the foil method.

This is .5 to .6 mm of free edge. This is the length I like them at and I don't normally let them grow any longer. I usually file them down to about half this length or else it's hard to type. Currently, I have two nail tears at the moment that I'm trying to grow out. My right thumb and my left ring finger. My right thumb is always breaking; it catches on something and bends back. I feel that thumb nails are not meant to have length.

The break on my ring finger has grown out enough that it can be filed down if I wanted to.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

This week's theme is celebrity nails. We can either replicate a celebrity manicure or be inspired by a celebrity to create a manicure. I went the easy route and decided to replicate a manicure I saw in a music video.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Yesterday, I meet with the lovely ladies from Berrypolished.com and Mandie's Manicures for lunch! Please check out their amazing blogs! It was nice to talk polish, manicures, nail blogging but the waitress was trying to rush us out of there which was weird!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

I broke down and bought the mini set of the Nicki Minaj polishes since I didn't win the Nails 4 Life nail art contest. The colors weren't really that unique. I just really wanted them for some reason!

Here's Pink Friday:

OPI Pink Friday. This is a standard baby/bubblegum pink. A tad more pink than in this photo. The lighting washed it out a bit. It applied a little streaky but I think this was due to the mini brush. It was fully opaque in 3-coats, no top coat.

Friday, May 18, 2012

I picked up a couple more colors for 365 Days of Color's Candy Shoppe collection which can be ordered here. I decided to wear ButtaFINGA!

365 Days of Color ButtaFINGA. 3-coats over black. It is a lovely burnt orange with small black square glitter. I thought layering over black would bring out the glitter. It didn't. It washed out the square glitter. :( Yes, this would be a better combination for fall or Halloween.

Here's some other layering possibilities with ButtaFINGA:

From L to R: Essence Be Optimistic, OPI's Monsooner or Later, SpaRitual Can you dig it? Each has 1-coat of ButtaFINGA.

I thought each would complement the orange and allow the square glitter to be visible. I think layering with Be Optimistic is most true to a real ButterFinger candy bar. Layering over brown brought out the orange glitter as well. This glitter would likely be fully opaque in 3-4 coats. Since I bought mini, I think layering is best to save on usage.

Every time I see a ButterFinger, I'm always reminded of dear ole Bart Simpson:

Thursday, May 17, 2012

I've always wanted to try American Apparel polishes but the price tag always put me off. Full price they're $6.00 or three for $15. I did spy these for a $1 in the sale bin. Now that's a waaaay better deal! These were being discontinued so you won't be able to find them.

There's new collection of colors that are similar and can be found here or in-store.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

This week's theme is newspaper nails. If you are not familiar, it's a simple technique where you paint your base color and apply a bit of newsprint over your nail and the ink with transfer but in inverse.

To be honest, I wasn't interested in newsprint nails when it was first trending. I did try it when I was planning my Blade Runner inspired manicure. There's a scene where Pris stuffs her clothes with trash to stay warm. It didn't work out for that mani but then it gave me another idea! I love mani ideas, don't you?

Here's the basic newspaper manicure:

Reading the texts, you can figure out what part of the world I live in!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I couldn't buy your highly sought after and nearly impossible to buy Connect the Dots...I had to dupe it! Connect the Dots has been one my biggest lemmings forever now! It's going on Evil Bay for $50-$200. Instead, I bought the glitters to make a close dupe! I'm sorry.

Here's the second attempt photographed under artificial light. This is 1-coat, no top coat.

2-coats with top coat.

How I mixed it?

All frankening supplies can be found on TKBTrading.com. It's a supplier for people interested in making their own soaps, makeup, fragrances and nail polish. It's open to the public, anyone can order. I bought the glitters that make up Connect the Dots, the black/white hexes and string glitter. Yes, when it was all said and done the initial start up was quite costly.

Basic Frankening Supplies:

Glitter Suspension Base

Glitters/pigments

Empty Nail Polish Bottles

Steel plated ball bearings to mix the polish

Patience and skill.

Alternatives?

I know custom frankening might not be your thing. Please below for similar colors from other indie sellers:

Sticks n Stones by Cover Band

Dots n Stripes by SparklesbyJulie

Spotty Dottie Light by All That Glitters

Spotty Dottie Dark by All That Glitters

Valentino by Pretty & Polished

Some of these might be out of stock but are easier to obtain than a Lynnderella.

Again, it was not my intention to infringe on Lynnderella's original creation. I'm not going to sell these as Connect the Dots dupes. This was a challenge to myself to see if I could franken and dupe Connect the Dots in which I had a snowballs chance in hell of ever getting!

I will have a more in-depth post about frankening and how to create a glitter mix. Let me know if you'd like it in video format or not.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

I was on a polish hunt for BeautyGnome at the mall and I like to hit all my usual nail polish hunting grounds: Nordstroms, Sephora, Icing and Claire's. The mall is vast and infinite. I know the pathways to polish...and...the food court!

Anyways...I bought these from Claire's. The square bottles and the glass flecked finish caught my eye.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The base is this beautiful orange glass flecked jelly from Claire's called Little Dipper. Doesn't it look like sparkling oranges? I stamped the orange slices with BM04. Sorry my stamping didn't come out perfect. The base was too orange. I wasn't feeling very inspired with this one.

Here are the other bloggers participating in this challenge, please check out their interpretation of this challenge:

Friday, May 4, 2012

Last night, I wanted to do just one nail using water marbling but I ended up doing a full mani! Woot! Now, I've only done two successful water marbles.

Water marbling is time consuming and there are many factors that can negatively affect the final outcome. I will post a brief overview on how to water marble but please see Youtube for a plethora videos on how to do this technique.

I picked up a few of the Kleancolor Chunky holos off Ebay awhile ago but I never got around to wearing #236 Chunky Holo Black. Mainly, because I'm too bashful to wear glitter. I like glitter just don't have the guts to wear it. :/

First, the Kleancolor Chunky holos are not holographic at all but rather a multichromatic glitter which isn't bad, just misnamed.

Kleancolor #236 Chunky Holo Black over Revlon's Royal, 1-coat with top-coat. I tried to be sparse with the glitter placement to ease with removal.

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